Ss. Cyril and Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church

A chalk home blessing from the feast of the Epiphany. | Credit: A.Davey via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Jan 4, 2026 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Have you ever walked past a door and seen what appears to be random letters and numbers written at the top? These letters and numbers actually have a great significance.

Traditionally on the feast of Epiphany, Catholics bless their homes by writing the letters C, M, and B and the numbers of the year on either side — so this year it would look like “20+C+M+B+26.”

The letters stand for the traditional names of the three Magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. They also represent the Latin blessing “Christus mansionem benedicat,” which means “May Christ bless this house.”

Many Catholic parishes will give their parishioners a piece of chalk, a small bottle of holy water, and the words for the house blessing so that each family can bless its home.

Epiphany, which is also known as “Little Christmas,” is the feast that celebrates the arrival of the three Magi who came to worship the child Jesus shortly after his birth. It is traditionally celebrated on Jan. 6. However, the Church in the United States celebrates it on the Sunday between Jan. 2 and Jan. 8. Many around the world celebrate this feast with as much pomp and circumstance as Christmas, including the exchanging of gifts.

The blessing, which is popular in Poland and other Slavic countries, has spread around the world and become increasingly popular in the United States.

How do you bless your home?

Begin by having all family members gather outside the front door. All make the sign of the cross. One person will then read this prayer:

Leader: Peace be to this house.

All: And to all who dwell herein.

Leader: From the east came the Magi to Bethlehem to adore the Lord; and opening their treasures they offered precious gifts: gold for the great King, incense for the true God, and myrrh in symbol of his burial.

(Enter your home and read the Magnificat, the hymn of praise sung by the Blessed Virgin Mary in Luke’s Gospel after being greeted by Elizabeth. During this, sprinkle the area you are in with holy water. After that is complete, pray:)

All: From the east came the Magi to Bethlehem to adore the Lord; and opening their treasures they offered precious gifts: gold for the great King, incense for the true God, and myrrh in symbol of his burial.

Leader: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation,

All: But deliver us from evil.

Leader: All they from Saba shall come

All: Bringing gold and frankincense.

Leader: O Lord, hear my prayer.

All: And let my cry come unto thee.

Leader: Let us pray. O God, who by the guidance of a star didst on this day manifest thine only-begotten Son to the Gentiles, mercifully grant that we who know thee by faith may also attain the vision of thy glorious majesty. Through Christ, Our Lord.

All: Amen.

Leader: Be enlightened, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee — Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary.

All: And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light and kings in the splendor of thy rising, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee.

Leader: Let us pray. Bless, O Lord God almighty, this home, that in it there may be health, purity, the strength of victory, humility, goodness, and mercy, the fulfillment of thy law, the thanksgiving to God the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. And may this blessing remain upon this home and upon all who dwell herein. Through Christ, Our Lord.

All: Amen.

After the prayers are recited, walk throughout your home sprinkling each room with holy water. Then write the initials of the Magi connected with crosses at the top of your front door. Then the numbers of the year. The numbers will be split so that they are on each side of the initials. You will write:

20 + C + M + B + 26

This is a special tradition at the beginning of each year, a way to invite God into your home and place your family under his protection.

This story was first published Jan. 6, 2022, and was updated Jan. 2, 2026.

United Nations Headquarters in New York City. - UN Photo/John Isaac.

Jan 4, 2026 / 00:15 am (CNA).

The U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has drawn divergent international reactions, with European leaders calling for restraint ahead of an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Monday.

Pope Leo XIV has not yet commented on Saturday's operation, though observers expect him to address the situation during his midday Angelus address Sunday. The pope warned in December against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, urging President Trump to seek dialogue rather than force.

The Vatican's daily newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, led its Saturday edition with coverage of the "sudden escalation," describing the situation in Caracas as "highly volatile."

European leaders stress international law

EU High Representative Kaja Kallas said on X she spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the EU ambassador in Caracas. Acknowledging Maduro "lacks legitimacy," she called for a peaceful transition while prioritizing EU citizens' safety.

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that Venezuelans "could only rejoice" at ridding themselves of dictatorship. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez affirmed Spain never recognized Maduro but will not recognize "an intervention that violates international law".

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said "Britain was not involved" while posting on X that the UK "regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president and we shed no tears about the end of his regime."

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged Venezuela's drug trafficking while confirming Germany had not recognized the Maduro regime as legitimate. He called for a transition towards a democratically elected government.

China, Russia condemn strikes

China's Foreign Ministry expressed "deep shock" at the "blatant use of force," noting its envoy met with Maduro hours before the operation.

Russia called the strikes "armed aggression", saying “ideological hostility has triumphed over businesslike pragmatism.”

The U.N. Security Council will convene an emergency meeting at 10 a.m. Monday in New York after Colombia requested the session, backed by permanent members Russia and China.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he is "deeply alarmed," describing the operation as "a dangerous precedent."

Latin American responses divided sharply, with Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico condemning the strikes while Argentina's Javier Milei praised the capture. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado declared "the hour of freedom has arrived."

Maduro is being held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center ahead of Monday's arraignment on narco-terrorism charges. Venezuelan bishops called for prayer and national unity.

Andrew Laubacher, executive director of Humanality, ahead of his talk at SEEK 2026 in Denver, Colorado on Jan. 2, 2026. Credit: Francesca Fenton/EWTN News

Jan 3, 2026 / 17:56 pm (CNA).

In 2018, Andrew Laubacher, a touring Catholic musician at the time, decided to quit social media completely. Despite his recording label telling him that he was making a terrible decision, he was exhausted from the impact it was having on his life and felt God calling him to make this change.

Fast-forward to today and Laubacher is now the executive director of Humanality, a nonprofit organization that “exists to help people discover freedom through an intentional relationship with technology” and offers individuals help to break their digital addiction through a 12-week digital detox program.

Speaking to hundreds of young Catholics at SEEK 2026 in Denver, Colorado, on Jan. 2, he explained how social media can become addictive and have negative effects on the human person – including depression, anxiety, and body image issues – and offered tips on how individuals can use technology practically and intentionally.

Laubacher began by highlighting data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which showed that the average U.S. life expectancy decreased for the first time between 2017 and 2019 and that “Americans are 10 times more likely to have a depressive illness than they were 60 years ago."

Citing the federal data as well as research in Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 book “The Anxious Generation,” Laubacher explained that in 2010 a new feature was introduced on smartphones which led to “drastic increases in anxiety and depression.”

What was this feature? The front-facing camera.

“When that front-facing camera came out, all of a sudden our lives became self-defining,” he argued.

Laubacher shared how he saw this play out in his own life – constantly comparing himself and his life to others, experiencing lust, feeling lonely, and wasting his time mindlessly scrolling through his feeds.

“These technologies affected me in many different ways,” he said, “And when I made that leap [off social media] everything got better. My friendships got better, my purity, my productivity, my prayer got better. Everything started to improve.”

“So you guys, the way that you've grown up with these technologies has literally changed everything… It's changed the way you think. It's changed the way you behave. It's changed the way you relate to one another. It's changed the way you sleep. It's changed the way you perceive reality,” Laubacher told those gathered.

“You have to understand algorithms are literally shaping your perception of what is true. And if you are living your life scrolling and getting stuck into these platforms like me you're not necessarily as you want to be.”

Laubacher said that the average 18-year-old in 2025 is on pace to have a 90-year life span. He then broke this down into how many months one might spend doing different activities such as eating, sleeping, going to school or work, and driving.

Over the course of one's life, the average person is left with “334 months of free time – this is where you fall in love. This is where you create music, this is where you write that book, this is where you go on the trip with your loved ones. This is where you discover your vocation,” Laubacher said.

“Right now, of those 334 months, 93% of that time is going to be spent on the screen,” he said. “At the end of your lives, you in this crowd will have looked at the screen for 27 years of your life."

"And friends, my mission is to help you get that time back into your life. So you can invest that time and attention into the things that matter most.”

Offering those gathered practical tools to gain more freedom from digital media, Laubacher highlighted three of the 11 ways Humanality’s digital detox program aims to help individuals gain a more human way to be – be light, be giving, and be present.

“Be light” focuses on individuals stopping the nighttime scrolling and beginning to acknowledge the difference between daytime and nighttime. Laubacher explained that people spend 90% of their time indoors versus 100 years ago when people spent 90% of their time outdoors.

Additionally, when people scroll on their phones at nighttime, the light from the screen tells the brain it’s daytime.

“So, our separation from light in the daytime — and you scrolling yourself to sleep in the nighttime — is a huge reason for our mental health slash sleep disorder slash fatigue and exhaustion,” he said.

“Be giving” turns the self-centered nature of social media to one where you “start to think outside of yourself,” which leads a person to be “more happy and more healthy when you live a life that is giving,” Laubacher explained.

The last way Laubacher highlighted was “be present,” which aims to simply teach people how to be present with themselves, with others, and with God. “Friends, I want to tell you right now, the scariest, best, most amazing adventure in your life is going to be learning to love God, your neighbor, and yourself,” Laubacher said.

“And if I'm honest, I can love people pretty easily, but it's really hard for me to love myself most of the time. And I found that my technologies were not allowing me to get to know the person that God has created me to be.”

“These three ways – there's a lot more – but these three ways I think if you start to implement in your day today you'll start to use technology as a tool and get out of these addictions.”

Left to right: Curtis Martin, founder of FOCUS, and his son, Brock Martin, vice president of parish outreach at FOCUS, sit down for an interview with CNA on Dec. 10, 2025. | Credit: Francesca Fenton/EWTN News

Jan 3, 2026 / 08:00 am (CNA).

For nearly 30 years, FOCUS has been known for its missionary work on college campuses. Earlier this year, the ministry began to expand its reach with a new branch — FOCUS Parish.

FOCUS Parish brings FOCUS missionaries into Catholic parishes to help revitalize the parish itself and the parishioners, and to form missionary disciples — laypeople who effectively spread the Gospel message in the local community and diocese.

Founder of FOCUS Curtis Martin and his son, Brock Martin, vice president of parish outreach at FOCUS, both agree that FOCUS Parish is a response to the need of sending missionaries to “where the people are.”

“If we’re trying to bring the Gospel to every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth, the vast majority of people don’t currently live on U.S. college campuses,” Brock told CNA in an interview. “The Catholic Church has amazingly already done this work — every inch of the globe is already mapped out into a parish structure. So, FOCUS’ move into parishes is really a response to the fact that we want to take this mission seriously. We need to send missionaries to where the people are.”

Curtis added: “Everybody lives in a parish, as Brock said, and evangelization takes root when there’s real transformation. It’s going to take place in families and in parishes. That’s where Catholics live. And so we want to be with them to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them in the midst, as Brock said, in the midst of friendship.”

Parishes who take part in FOCUS’ new ministry will receive two full-time missionaries who become part of the parish’s leadership team, help advise and lead parish ministries, and work to create small communities where the Gospel message is shared and spread to all parishioners.

“These missionaries are imbedding into the parish culture,” Brock said.

FOCUS Parish is currently in 25 parishes and plans to expand to an additional 25 parishes in 2026.

When speaking to the fact that FOCUS Parish has become the fastest-growing part of the apostolate, Brock credited the current “landscape of the parish in the United States.”

“Right now there’s about 16,000 parishes [in the U.S.],” Brock said. “I think the number of parishes who are waking up, the number of pastors who recognize that business as usual is not working, we have to, with new ardor and new methodologies, try to figure out how to live the new evangelization. I just think there’s a unique moment where as pastors and finance councils become aware of the opportunity, we’re seeing more and more people start to raise their hand at a faster rate.”

Curtis highlighted the retention rate of FOCUS Parish missionaries leading to the success of the ministry.

“We’re seeing greater longevity with our missionaries because they’re not walking with 18- to 22-year-olds, they’re walking with people who are of their same age, maybe older, maybe younger,” he explained. “The retention rate for FOCUS missionaries in Parish last year was 100%. Nobody left. By way of comparison, probably 25% of the missionaries left on campus; that’s part of our cycle. And so to be able to recognize, we can grow because of the longevity.”

With the growth to 25 more parishes in the new year, FOCUS is looking to hire an additional 50 to 55 missionaries — considering both moving campus missionaries to parishes and hiring individuals who have never been FOCUS missionaries.

As for his hopes for the future, Brock said: “My deepest hope in FOCUS Parish is that this would be a simple and repeatable gift that we can offer to the Church.”

Curtis said: “My hope for FOCUS in the parish is actually hope. I think a lot of leaders in the Church are good people but they’re discouraged and they’re kind of managing a slow decline. And that’s not the way Christianity works. Christianity has grown in every generation since the time of Christ. We’re living in a very abnormal time, at least in the West. It’s shrinking. That’s not the way it should be.”

He added: “There’s a resurgence of faith — articles are being written about this all over the world — FOCUS is just participating in a little way. Millions of people awakening to Christ. We need to welcome them and to be able to recognize the Church ought to be growing. This can work. And when you have hope you start to make decisions based upon that and all of a sudden you see the Church should be a place of growth.”

Colin and Eithne Bell with Micheál Martin, Irish Taoiseach. The Bells founded the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust (KBRT) in 2013 after the death of their son. | Credit: Photo courtesy of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust

Jan 3, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Christmas season in Ireland is marked by the return of family members living abroad and by the strong tradition of visiting family graves.

Those themes of returning home and respect for the deceased lie at the heart of the work of one of Ireland’s most remarkable and humane charities, the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust (KBRT). Since it was founded in 2013, the trust has brought home the bodies of more than 2,000 Irish people who have died abroad in sudden and tragic circumstances. The trust typically has three or four repatriations underway at any given time.

The trust was founded by Colin and Eithne Bell and their family in memory of their son Kevin, who was killed in a hit-and-run accident in New York on June 16, 2013. To help the Bell family with the substantial expense of repatriating Kevin’s body to his family, the local community in the town of Newry rallied around the family and raised over $202,000 toward the costs.

Colin Bell told CNA: “Kevin was 26 years old, who loved life, enjoyed travel. He had been in Australia and Thailand. He had gone to New York. He enjoyed everything about New York. He went out on a Saturday evening for some drinks, took a cab home, and when he got out of the taxi, he was struck by a speeding white van, which knocked him into the road, where he was struck by another vehicle. Both vehicles drove off.” He was killed instantly.

Colin added: “I suppose mercifully, Kevin would have known nothing about it.”

“And when Kevin came home, it was obvious that Newry too had lost a son with the reaction to the news that broke,” he continued. “I can only describe it as Newry came around us like a blanket. In the space of a week, 150,000 pounds [$202,000] was raised to bring Kevin home.”

Coincidentally, at this time, the son of a Belfast family, Steven Clifford, was killed in Thailand. “We contacted the family and said, ‘Look, we have this money; we’ll pay to bring your son home.’”

The following week, a young man from Sligo died in Las Vegas. “So again, we reached out to the family. Because we had 150,000 pounds, which really wasn’t ours. We thought we would use this to help other families who had been visited with the same devastation. We thought once the 150,000 pounds was gone, that would be the end of it. But the parents of another young man killed in Perth heard that we were doing this and they had something in the region of 75,000 pounds, which they gave us to continue our work.”

“We decided then that we would make this Kevin’s legacy,” Bell said.

Gaining charitable status in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland led to Irish embassies and consulates worldwide asking for details so that when a bereaved family contacts the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin, they are given the trust’s number.

The repatriation process is complicated and expensive. To bring somebody from Australia can cost 8,000 or 9,000 pounds ($10,500 to $12,000). From mainland Europe, it is generally in the region of 5,000 to 6,000 pounds ($6,700 to $8,000). Bringing a body from the U.S. to Ireland is anything up to to 10,000 pounds or more ($13,500+) depending on what part of the country the body is repatriated from.

The Bell family understands what bereaved families are experiencing.

“Obviously if you get a cold call and you are told that you’ve lost a son or a daughter in Sydney, for example, what do you do? Who do you turn to? How do you go about getting your loved one home? I think that’s probably the biggest part of the work that we do because when a family does contact us we’re able to say, look we’ll take it from here, you don’t have to do anything. We’ll organize it and we’ll get your loved one home.”

Bell further explained: “From a faith perspective, one of the corporal works of mercy is to bury the dead, and the spiritual works of mercy ask us to comfort the sorrowful, which the trust does. It doesn’t matter if you’re at home or abroad — loss is loss and pain is pain, but particularly Irish people want their loved ones home. To want to be able to give the family a way to see their loved one is most important. I know it was very, very important to us.”

Bell said he remembers when his son’s body arrived home and his coffin was carried into the house, there was “a sense of peace that came with knowing that he was home. That was so important to us, especially his mummy [who] was able to hold his hand and speak to him.”

Bell described the work as therapeutic, especially as it keeps his son’s name alive.

As far as he knows, KBRT is the only repatriation organization in the world. The trust’s logo is an image of a bird.

“The last Christmas before Kevin went away, the last present that he got for his mother was a bird table. As Eithne says, birds come home to nest or to roost,” Bell said.

And what might Kevin have made of this work of mercy done in his name?

“Kevin was a big character who loved life and always said that he would be famous. So in a way his name is out there and it’s well known throughout the world. I’m sure he’d be very pleased with that fact.”

Mount St. Mary’s University Physician Assistant Program Director Mary Jackson, MMS, PA-C, CAQ-EM, demonstrates hands-on ultrasound techniques with students at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Mount St. Mary’s University

CNA Staff, Jan 3, 2026 / 01:00 am (CNA).

In response to Maryland’s growing health care crisis, Mount St. Mary’s University is launching a physician assistant program later this month.

The private Catholic liberal arts university, located in Emmitsburg, Maryland, is partnering with the Daughters of Charity — the religious order founded by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton — to bring more students into the field of health care.

Amid a staffing shortage, Maryland has had the longest emergency room wait times in the nation for nine years, averaging more than four hours. The number of serious medical mistakes that have resulted in death or severe disability for patients has risen each year in Maryland for the past four years, according to a report published in September 2025.

A recent projection found that Maryland needs to increase the number of primary physicians by 23% by 2030 to cover the gap in primary care providers.

The Maryland Department of Health has cited staffing shortages — among several causes of rising medical errors — as something that Mount St. Mary’s program hopes to mitigate.

The program — part of the college’s recent move into the health care arena — will welcome its inaugural class of 43 students on Jan. 20.

The school’s new program includes resources for students to prevent burnout through its Center for Clinician Well-Being.

CNA spoke with physician assistant program director Mary Jackson about the new program.

CNA: What inspired the launch of the new physician assistant program?

Mary Jackson: The Mount made a very intentional decision to enter the health care education arena as another way to live out our mission. As a Catholic university, Mount St. Mary’s graduates ethical leaders who are inspired by a passion for learning and who lead lives of significance in service to God and others.

Preparing future health care clinicians is a natural extension of this mission, one that allows our students to serve individuals, families, and communities at moments of greatest vulnerability.

We chose to launch a physician assistant program because the PA profession consistently ranks among the top careers nationally, with strong student interest and growing workforce demand.

With a growing health care shortage in Maryland, how do you hope this program will address this crisis?

Maryland, like much of the country, is experiencing a significant health care workforce shortage, marked by long wait times, limited access in rural and underserved areas, and an aging population with increasing medical needs.

Physician assistants play a vital role in expanding access to high-quality care. By educating future PAs who are clinically excellent, compassionate, and mission-driven, our program aims to strengthen Maryland’s health care workforce and ensure that more patients receive timely, patient-centered care.

How does your mission as a Catholic university drive the physician assistant program?

Our Catholic identity shapes every aspect of the physician assistant program. The Mount’s commitment to service, compassion, equity, and well-being calls us to prepare clinicians who go beyond transactional medicine.

We aim to form PAs who care deeply for all patients, especially those who are underserved, while also tending to their own well-being so they can flourish long term in their calling to health care.

How did Mount St. Mary’s work with the Daughters of Charity to build this program?

The Daughters of Charity have been extraordinary partners in bringing this vision to life. Their legacy of caring for the poor and vulnerable has inspired the program’s mission and helped us ground our work in the values of humility and loving service.

The Daughters have generously provided both tangible and in-kind support, enabling our inspiring facility, helping fund our Care for America scholarships, and working with us as thought leaders in this work.

Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, speaks to CNA during the SEEK 2026 conference on Jan. 2, 2026. | Credit: Amira Abuzeid/CNA

Jan 2, 2026 / 20:00 pm (CNA).

Bishop Michael Olson, whose diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, is hosting the SEEK 2026 conference, said he is praying for unity in Christ.

Olson said he has observed that young people attending the conference have “a real openness to God’s call. They very much want to make a difference for Christ” with their lives.

“There’s a sense of communion that the Church has that postmodern reality undercuts. Young people, however, want to be disciples of the Lord. They want to belong, but they want to belong in the way he calls them to belong.”

Regarding what is moving him spiritually right now, he said in an interview that “the heart of my prayer is the prayer of Jesus: That all may be one, as he and the father are one.”

He said he is praying that “we all find communion and unity in Christ, as his Church, which is his intention.”

“With all differences that we’re tempted to be divided over, especially in the sacraments and the liturgy,” he said he prays to help foster a sense of communion among people within the Church.

Immigration

About immigration, a prominent issue in Texas, Olson said that along with the majority of the U.S. bishops, he affirms the rule of law and the integrity of borders, “because without that, there is no sense of peace; there’s chaos and lawlessness and the most vulnerable suffer.”

He said we all have to stop “defining ourselves by partisan ideologies, which feels like the dominant ‘religion’ in the U.S., for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.”

“We have a responsibility to lend comfort [to immigrants] and to provide security. As an international issue and as a nation, we must help other nations to ensure their borders,” he continued.

“Some of the challenges for the leadership of other nations are gangs. The most vulnerable are paying the price, terrified by the tyranny of the gangs,” he said.

“We have to look at ourselves and say, how have we promoted [those challenges] in areas of foreign policy? We’re reaping what we’ve sown,” Olson said.

“What we faced before with abortion and the death penalty, we now face with immigration: The dignity of the human person must be focused on, as well as the primacy of family life as the basis of society,” he said.

Parish and school security

Asked about how security at parishes and Catholic schools is handled in his diocese following recent violence at Catholic schools, he said for the past seven years, the diocese has employed the Guardian ministry, which involves fully vetted, trained, and armed parishioners in partnership with the police.

Those in the ministry are “proactive in cultivating a spirit and practice of deescalation, in the spirit of discipleship with Christ, in order to protect the vulnerable and weak.”

Olson said at the rest of the SEEK conference he plans to spend time with the young people, giving a talk to the seminarians on prayer and St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

Pope Leo XIV. | Credit: Vatican Media

Jan 2, 2026 / 18:07 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV expressed his closeness and compassion to the families of the victims of a fire that broke out in the early hours of Jan. 1 at a bar in the ski resort of Crans-Montana in Switzerland.

Nearly 300 people were celebrating New Year’s Eve at the Le Constellation bar when the fire spread rapidly from the basement to the upper part of the establishment, causing a subsequent explosion that left at least 40 people dead and 115 injured.

The causes of the tragic incident are still unknown, although authorities believe it was an accident.

In a telegram expressing condolences addressed to Bishop Jean-Marie Lovey of Sion and signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy Father joined in mourning with the grieving families and all of Switzerland.

The pontiff also prayed to the Lord to “welcome the deceased into his dwelling place of peace and light, and to sustain the courage of those who are suffering in their hearts or bodies.”

“May the Mother of God, in her tenderness, bring the consolation of faith to all those affected by this tragedy and keep them in hope,” the telegram states.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

The tabernacle of Holy Thorn Monastery church in Valladolid, Spain, was forced open and the Blessed Sacrament was stolen. | Credit: Creative Commons/Nicolás Pérez

Jan 2, 2026 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

The tabernacle of Holy Thorn Monastery church in Valladolid, Spain, was forced open and the Blessed Sacrament was stolen.

The Cistercian monastery, which was founded in 1147, preserves a relic of Christ’s crown of thorns.

The monastery’s parish priest, Father Francisco Casas, filed a complaint with the Civil Guard on Dec. 28, 2025, after informing the archbishop of Valladolid and president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Luis Argüello, of what had happened earlier that day.

In March 2025, this same act of desecration was committed in Our Lady of the Meadow church in the town Arroyo de la Encomienda on the outskirts of Valladolid.

According to the Holy Thorn Monastery’s website, the perpetrators did not touch anything else, so “their target was the Lord.”

Act of reparation

In response to this “offense of exceptional gravity,” Argüello will perform an act of reparation at 6 p.m. local time on Jan. 3 at the monastery.

The act of reparation will be carried out “for the harm caused to the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus Christ in the bread and wine, transformed into his body and blood after the consecration,” the Archdiocese of Valladolid stated on its website.

After lamenting that this is the second desecration in an area church in just nine months, the archdiocese urged the faithful “to pray in reparation for this sacrilegious act, as well as to safeguard the celebration of the Eucharist and the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle.”

The monastery is asking Catholics “not to remain indifferent” to such a grave offense and to join in the act of reparation — either at the monastery or individually — to spend this time with the outraged Lord and give public witness to their faith.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

In his New Year's Day homily at Newtownpark Avenue Church in Dublin, Archbishop Dermot Farrell called upon Ireland’s politicians to show leadership in promoting peace and in how they communicate and articulate it. Credit: John McElroy

Jan 2, 2026 / 12:58 pm (CNA).

In his New Year’s Day homily at Newtownpark Avenue Church in Dublin, Archbishop Dermot Farrell called upon Ireland’s politicians to show leadership in promoting peace and in how they communicate and articulate it.

The archbishop was speaking at a Mass for the World Day of Peace where apostolic nuncio Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor and Archbishop Emeritus Diarmuid Martin were among the concelebrants.

His appeal comes at a time when Ireland’s traditional neutrality has come under scrutiny and as the country prepares to take over the EU presidency in the second half of 2026, where defense will be high on the agenda. The presidency of the Council of the European Union is a role that rotates among the EU member states every six months. Fifty European leaders are due to visit Ireland during its presidency.

“Yes, leaders are important; indeed, good leadership is vital. However, we need to take to heart that good leaders bring people with them,” Farrell said.

Speaking before a congregation that included government ministers and representatives of the Irish Defence Forces, Farrell quoted the late Nobel Prize winner John Hume.

“Many here this morning will remember the conviction and witness of the late John Hume. For John Hume, ‘political leadership [was] like being a teacher. It’s about changing the language of others,’ he said. ‘I say it and go on saying it until I hear the man in the pub saying my words back to me.’”

The archbishop continued: “Ireland has a proud record in international work for peace. Now, in our days, there is a need and opportunity for the Irish state to articulate how this tradition and the values which underpin it will be continued in a rapidly changing international situation.”

Farrell said there is a need as well as an opportunity for Ireland to articulate how this peace tradition and the values that underpin it can continue today.

“It is not enough to invest in defense capacity or to point to how the circumstances of our traditional military neutrality have changed,” he said. “Ireland’s commitment to promoting a sustainable peace needs a new articulation. We are not in an either-or situation. It is not them or us. When we invest in peace everybody wins.”

The Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris have made repeated statements on Ireland’s neutrality, but that has not prevented them from making the state’s views known on international conflicts.

On Ukraine and Gaza, for example, Ireland has taken a decisive political stance, which has aroused the ire of the Russian and Israeli governments.

Writing in the London’s Daily Telegraph, Barry O’Halloran voiced an opinion shared by some in the U.K. and Europe that Ireland needs to invest to defend itself irrespective of its neutrality: “Irish neutrality is a legacy of Éamon de Valera’s considerable antipathy to all things British and has been the lodestar of Irish foreign policy since the state was founded.”

The Irish state relies on the British Royal Navy to protect Irish coastal waters, and the country’s geographical position at the periphery of Europe makes it strategically of interest to Russia.

Russian submarines have been mapping the transatlantic cables in Irish waters, which carry about 75% of the data traveling between Europe and the United States.

“After decades of underfunding, the Irish Defence Forces have no idea what is going on in the seas around Ireland. The navy doesn’t have the ships, the personnel, or even the electronic equipment to monitor hostile activity in our waters,” Stephen Collins wrote in the Irish Times.

Martin has acknowledged concerns about economic security in terms of gas connectors and subsea cables and dismissed a statement by Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that the European Union and Ukraine were attempting to interfere with Ireland’s neutral status.

In his homily on New Year’s Day, Farrell was unequivocal that governments clearly have a critical role to play in shaping the course of international events and the onerous responsibility of pursuing the path of peace even in the face of provocation.

“Enduring peace is born of compassion and respect; it is born of patience, of attention to the other, of the conviction that the one who presents themselves as different, as other, is actually like oneself, is a true sister or brother of mine. This is what our faith means when we say that peace is born of hope.”